Bay Area

EB PREC’s Plan to Replace Landlords With Communal Ownership

Published

5 years ago

September 19, 2019

Gregory Jackson (bottom left), Marissa Ashkar (top left), Noni Session (center), Shira Shaham (top right) and Ojan Mobedshahi (bottom right), are all staff members of the East Bay Permanent Real Estate Collective, a collective that prioritizes serving Black and Indigenous residents and creates permanently affordable housing. Photo by Erin Conger.

The East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative (EB PREC) is working to keep Black, indigenous, people of color and allied communities in the East Bay by communally purchasing and sustaining land and housing with local residents.

“The critical part of our project is that we take land and housing permanently off the speculative market,” said EB PREC’s Executive Director and third-generation West Oakland resident Noni Session. She, along with six other local residents, form the Black led and POC majority staff of EB PREC, and the growing cooperative currently has more than 125 other non-staff members including resident owners and investors.

In an interview with The Oakland Post, Session explained how EB PREC is replacing landlords with resident owners and investors who are driven by the desire to sustain the community as opposed to make money.

California residents can invest up to $1,000 in EB PREC’s collective fund and receive 1.5 percent in annual dividends, a rate similar to what many banks offer. After five years, investors can choose to sell their share, which allows them to get their invested money back plus any outstanding dividends. Local investors who own a share of the collective also can attend EB PREC events and vote on major cooperative decisions.

“If 100 of us can join together to create a pot of investment,” said Session, “that means…we don’t have to wait for organized capital, or follow the very poor advice of commercial developers, or wait for charity-based subsidies from our city in order to change our outcomes.”

In June 2019, EB PREC collaborated with the Northern California Land Trust (NCLT) and residents of a four-unit building in North Oakland called Coop 789 to purchase the building from their former landlord.

The residents now no longer pay rent but instead pay monthly lease shares. The lease share money goes towards the cost of the project, minimal property management fees, an emergency repair fund, and equity that goes into residents’ capital account that they can cash out if they want to move and sell their share back to the coop.

EB PREC’s mission is to keep these housing costs permanently affordable. The coop doesn’t allow the residents to ever sell the property, leaving it as a community resource as opposed to a commodity to be sold for profit.

“We feel secure in our housing situation,” said Coop 789 resident Tia Taruc-Myers. “And that feels really empowering.”

EB PREC is also interested in how its connections with local residents and organizations can create social capital to serve the community. Session insists that EB PREC can’t do this work alone and she never would have known how to go about starting the cooperative if it wasn’t for the example she saw in Mandela Foods Cooperative, the cooperative West Oakland grocery store that started in 2009.

EB PREC’s work also wouldn’t be possible if they hadn’t collaborated with The Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC). SELC pushed for the passing of California Assembly Bill 816, which has allowed residents to invest up to $1,000 in a cooperative housing endeavor. Before, the state had capped individual investments at $350. Without the law change, EB PREC’s method of communal housing investment wouldn’t have been possible.

Although EB PREC officially launched in Dec. 2018, it’s already on route to steward five different properties by the end of 2019 and has plans to add five to 10 additional properties in 2020.

As EB PREC works to obtain and steward these properties, it’s educating the public about stewarding land and communal ownership.

“Communities have not just been dispossessed of land and assets,” said Session. “They’ve been dispossessed of knowledge, skills, access, and information.”

EB PREC has formed the Collective Action and Land Liberation Institute, which is a platform for their outreach and educational efforts. Gregory Jackson, EB PREC’s partnership director, facilitates book clubs in East Oakland and Richmond. He’s currently teaching “Collective Courage” by Jessica Gordon Nembhard, a book that chronicles Black cooperative organization and its foundational role in the Civil Rights Movement.

“We want to communicate to our communities that not only are coops not a new thing, they’re not a white thing,” said Session.

Zack Haber

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Bay Area

Faces Around the Bay: Jim Brosnahan, Esq.

James J. Brosnahan, ESQ, an international trial lawyer and trial advocacy teacher, has remained unshaken in his fervent belief in the power of the law to right injustices. Brosnahan has fought to open the legal profession to those previously excluded and worked to provide lawyers to the millions who go without.

Published

5 hours ago

May 3, 2024

Oakland Post

By Barbara Fluhrer “Isn’t this what old men are supposed to do… sit on a bench in the park?”

By Barbara Fluhrer

James J. Brosnahan, ESQ, an international trial lawyer and trial advocacy teacher, has remained unshaken in his fervent belief in the power of the law to right injustices.

Brosnahan has fought to open the legal profession to those previously excluded and worked to provide lawyers to the millions who go without. He has argued for the administrators of justice to represent the whole community. He’s tried 150 cases to conclusion and is ranked among the top 30 trial lawyers in the U.S. (Legal 500 US). He’s been called “scrappy,” “a lion in the courtroom,” and “ultra- liberal.”

One of his earliest cases (1962) involved two Navajo children shot by a White man on a reservation in Arizona. “The legal system needed to work as well for Native Americans as for White people,” he said. “The defendant was found guilty of second-degree murder.”

In 1963, U.S. Attorney Cecil Poole hired him as U.S. Attorney from a list of 200 applicants.

He and Poole, as federal observers, led the Vietnam protesters as they marched. The purpose: to avoid violence.

“Poole taught me preventative law in a chaotic situation and became one of my strongest mentors,” remembers Brosnahan.

In 1964, Brosnahan served on the NAACP’s Housing Committee in S.F., when 70% of the city’s housing was not available to Blacks. They sued racial discriminators, fought for reform and opposed the displacement of minorities in the Western Addition. They won and they lost, but they became the racial conscience of San Francisco in the fight for fair housing.

In 1969, two Black community workers in Oakland were indicted for stealing federal money.

“My two clients were activists in Oakland. I believed there was an element of racism running through Washington’s decision to indict two Black men who worked every day to help the poor,” he said.

The case was eventually dismissed. In the early 70s, he responded to a subpoena and testified against Judge Rehnquists’ confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court. He had witnessed Rehnquist obstructing voting at a polling place. Amid threats on his life, he was the chief defense lawyer for the American who joined the Taliban in 2002.

Brosnahan, his wife Carol and three children moved from S.F. to Berkeley in 1964, in part, to participate in the Berkeley school integration program. She is a retired Alameda County Superior Court judge.

Brosnahan, 90, checks in to his San Francisco firm, Morrison & Foerster often. He paints, reads, walks a mile a day, journals, and lectures, while writing another book: “Cultural History of Trials over the Centuries.”

His last book “Justice at Trial,” published in 2023, details his life and battles.

He reflects, “Over my career I have come to realize that one secret for enriching your own life is trying to help others. What better way to do that than to represent them in court.”

Oakland Post

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Activism

Obituary: Social Justice Leader, the Rev. Cecil Williams, Passes at 94

On April 22, community leader and social justice advocate Reverend Cecil Williams died at his home in San Francisco surrounded by his loved ones, according to his family. He was 94 years old.

Published

6 hours ago

May 3, 2024

Oakland Post

The Rev. Cecil Williams, civil rights activist and social justice leader was the head pastor of San Francisco’s non-denominational GLIDE Memorial United Methodist Church.

By California Black Media

On April 22, community leader and social justice advocate Reverend Cecil Williams died at his home in San Francisco surrounded by his loved ones, according to his family.

He was 94 years old.

The reverend was a civil rights leader who advocated for the equal rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people in the Bay Area.

Williams was the head pastor of the non-denominational GLIDE Memorial United Methodist Church. The church welcomed individuals from the queer community and people struggling with homelessness, housing instability and substance use disorder (SUD).

Through his work, Rev. Williams attracted national attention. Prominent political and cultural leaders such as Maya Angelou, Bono, Oprah Winfrey, and Bill Clinton all attended church services at Glide.

Congressmember Barbara Lee (D-CA-12) said she is deeply saddened about the passing of her dear friend.

“The Reverend changed the lives of millions through radical love, support, inclusivity, and a commitment to service to the most marginalized,” Lee said.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said that the reverend inspired people across California to embody the values of generosity and acceptance.

Rev. Williams was, “a visionary leader whose legendary compassion and love for his community transformed the lives of people from all walks of life,” Newsom said.

Rev. Williams served as the chief executive officer of the Glide Foundation until his retirement in 2023.